Surreal Life

Dropzone for an artist's ramblings. Critique and criticism desired.

Friday, April 29, 2005

End of uni starts today.

The room rented at 550 a week – an exuberant price for the modest cubicle and shared bathroom. But situated in the midst of the SeaPort, where concrete meets cobblestone, and with the lull of aged ships rubbing against the wooden dock, the room was worth every penny.

Many disagreed. And it filled me with sadness and an increasing worry that only abated when she rang Thursday evening.

Keira Thomas knocked on my studio door the beginning of the next week. Notice how I used ‘my studio’ instead of ‘our studio’ or even ‘the studio.’ I promised to work on that. After all, her arrival filled the hole growing in my wallet. I could afford a few small efforts.

So pleased to see her I was, that I grabbed her bags and immediately showed her the room. Odd that she hadn’t wanted to tour the place before transferring the money and signing a rent contract, but I didn’t ponder too much on the first signs of her … strange behavior. She was very pleased with the room, to much of my pride (I kept it immaculate since posting the ad and even sacrificed a few purple cushion seats to brighten the wooden-floored and white-walled deathtrap.

She was elated.

And after setting her bags in the furthest corner, we settled in the main room for drinks and chit chat.

I was the cleanest, handsomest, untouched man in the porn industry. She, of course, started off with a lovely comment about my sparkling hazel eyes. I swooned. This girl was a goddess. As long as she dished the compliments (where they were due) and loaded cash into my pockets, I was determined to keep her forever.

But, I told her firmly. This will not evolve into a romantic traipse or dating relationship.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

One Act (definitely not done)

David: (leaning around a cheap, metal chair, in the back -stage right-of an audience) Goals are spoon-fed to us from the moment we pop out into the doctor’s latex gloves.

Doctor: (holding the newborn up into the air in triumph) It’s a boy!

Nurse: Look at that thick hair! A movie star if I’ve ever seen one!

(the doctor and nurse huddle around the mother)

David: Even as a concept something was expected of me.

Mother: I’ll name him David. Like my grandfather’s grandfather.

David: My grandfather’s grandfather, David. The lumberjack. A surprisingly short, impish man with ungainly facial hair and raging acne. He lived out in the nowhere West among men who took and kept their women based on the bulge and strength of their forearms, and by winning enough drinking rounds. My namesake must have outdone in forearm width what he couldn’t in height and beauty.

Mother: My little boy against the whole big world.

Nurse: He’ll have no problem, Mrs.

David: Open your mouth David! Oh oh! Here comes the airplane. And who’s that battling on the wings? Why it’s David and Goliath! Look! David hit Goliath in the eyes with his slingshot! He’s stumbling back! Go David! Go! OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND EAT YOUR DAMN PEAS BOY. On my 3rd birthday I was given a slingshot. Not just any slingshot. This baby was crafted from the leg of our antique wooden coffee table … the one made by my grandfather’s grandfather David. I spent my preschool and kindergarten years believing that the shortest, hairiest kid could knock down the largest, strongest kid as long as the slingshot was in hand. So the slingshot never left my pocket. And I spent mornings in my uncle’s bathroom, massaging Rogaine into my face.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

You want her

So I posted something new today. A little something that I owe a friend. Yes, it is a story about sea ninjas. Yes, it will be ridiculous. Yes, it too will be posted in parts. Yes, I will probably finish it before the other story. Unless, of course, anyone has any objection. Though I think my lack of readership will make for no quarrel.

Sea Ninjas #1

An explosion rocks the cabin. I reel out of my seat and leap to the window. Fire reflects on the pane, shadowed by the many forms running in panic across the deck. In the rush I catch Tadokon’s face. His eyes wide and flickering around him, his shoulders forward, his teeth pulled back in a feral grimace, his sea-frothed hair plastered to his forehead, he glimpses my face in the window and holds for only a moment, before running past the windowpane.

The stars are brilliant this night. I’ve never seen them so clearly, framed by the endless black waves. I can see swells in the darkness. They roll onto each other from a great distance, overwhelming the birthing swells before them. Consuming. And falling waste into the side of my ship. My lip is damp with sea froth. It trickles down my chin. I wipe it away and look down at my red fingers.

Hello Mike

Jack stood and walked behind her. He stared anxiously down at the crook in her neck, hoping that when he released her, she wouldn’t jump on him again. Beating an officer in a police station – in the midst of his co-workers - he refused to touch her, but the others wouldn’t be so generous.

Cara didn’t look at him as he fumbled with his keys. She didn’t say a word as he gently released her ankles, and then her wrists. When he was through, she didn’t touch him, she simply started walking. Officers glanced from the escaping girl and back to the officer that had released her. They stopped her at the door, but before anything could be said Jack was there.

Cara looked at him then. It was a look that could have sent him to his knees, had he not been wearing that uniform.He watched her walk out the door.

The taxi cab pulled up to the white apartment complex at 21:30. A tall, lanky man tipped the driver with his one free hand and strode up the walk, launching himself up the stairs. He was something to look at, despite his awkward height and build. He took the stairs three at a time, swinging his arms (injured and not) with carefree confidence. They stopped, finally, at a dark door with the stencils 3B.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Stubborn

Back to uni, and so I start my lazy agenda early in this blog, with a day already skipped and poor writing to make up for it. Another excerpt of November Shadows posted. I really need a new title. Perhaps after I complete the novella, I'll open it up to the audience to find a name.

Today's Link: C-mon and Kypski's Shitty Bum. It's not what you expect.

Chapter 1...

She woke to a door slam and a hand at her neck. The fingers clawed at her skin and she kicked blindly out at her attacker, gathering strength in hearing the staggering 'oof' of her assailant. Then she opened her eyes and saw that it was Jack.

His eyes were cold steel. In one hand hung a set of handcuffs. The other groped through the car for her collar and dragged her from the car. "What are you..?" He didn't respond. The cuffs clicked behind her and she was jostled forward, blinking in the light, into a station filled with ringing phones, the curses of offenders and the sobs of their loved ones. "Jack! Jack!" she cried his name over and over, fighting backwards against him.

Cara snapped upwards, looking about her with understanding. 'You foolish devil,' she thought. 'You foolish, sly devil.' Play along she would. And for catching her so off-guard, well what could she do but return the favor?

"No!" She threw herself against a nearby officer, strewing papers everywhere in desperate attempt to escape Jack's grip. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she let loose a low, menacing growl. She was no longer a silly car thief, or a girl fantasizing of rainbows. Cara was a mass murderer, she was crazy. She would rip your head from your neck with her teeth.

Everyone quieted. Even the rapists’ mothers stifled their cries and raised their heads to watch Cara make her fuss. Cara was the only one not watching. She was kicking out at everything near her, using her lover, Jack, as leverage. She nailed another officer before the rush began. Officers swarmed her, catching her wild legs, pinning her manic hips. To anyone unaware of the badges on their chests the whole scene would appear to be some gangbang rape show, with the girl screaming in the midst. When everyone settled, Cara was latched to a chair, handcuffs all over her limbs, and Jack was warily watching her from his desk.

‘You’re insane,’ his eyes said.

As convict families rediscovered their tissues and paperwork was all collected and organized, Cara spoke. “You deserved it.”

He pulled up a chair and sat close. “You’re not going home to him tonight,”

She sniffed in indignation.

“I’m not going to come collect you on the porch again, Cara.”

“I can handle him.”

“No. I pull up and you’re cowering on your own goddamned porch. I tell you to file charges and you stab a knife through his hand.”

“He deserved that too.”

“You’re not going to be anywhere near that house when he comes back from the hospital tonight.”

She glared. He had no right to dictate her life. “Hell if I won’t.”

He slammed his hand on the table. “Try it.”

God he liked good in that uniform. Her hands shook at the idea. Mike would be furious to find the house empty when he returned. He would look for her, and Jack. Oh god. Jack. She couldn’t let that happen.

Taking her silence for something else, Jack settled back behind his desk and sighed. He flipped through papers. Too much work. An 18 year old, brand new rapist thrown back in a jail cell. It was a grand way to celebrate newfound adulthood. Jack paused and slowly looked up at her. Cara sat staring at the proceedings about her. The metal chafed uncomfortably at her wrists and ankles. He had done this to her? Sometimes he wondered just how different he was from the man he refused to let her go home to.

Jack had hit her once. That was after her first accident. He found Cara on her porch, swinging away on the porch. Her eyes were gone, looking at something not in his plane. He made her stand, and when she tried to go back inside her house, Jack jerked her away from the door and slapped her across the face. Her eyes came back to him again, but her hands trembled in their own fury and he wouldn’t lay another hand on her as she tackled him. Those trembling hands broke his nose, her feet wouldn’t stop kicking, but he couldn’t bring himself to defend himself against the blows.

Her hands were shaking like that now.

And now, strapped to the chair by her hands and feet, he wondered if he had done it again.

Chapter 1

Cara Gallahan loved rainbows. She loved tennis shoes, men's pants, and dabbled in rugby as well, but none of these held her attention like psychedelic skies. In fact, nothing could pry her attention from the purple, red, blue streaks overhead. Her fingers tightly gripped the steering wheel in her delight as she stuck her head out her window and turned her face upwards. Long red hair flipped back in the breeze of 20 mph, wide green eyes fixed on the heavens, lips curved in a smile of pure delight, and her foot pressing down down on the gas petal. This wasn't an unheard of occurrence in the tall tomes of Cara mishaps. So, when the lapping of wind through her hair suddenly ceased, and her head jerked into the rearview mirror, she didn't shriek or carry on like the woman she back ended.

It was a van this time, sea green and covered in 'My Kid Can Beat Up Your College Student' bumper stickers. The woman leapt from her car and ran to inspect the damage, yelling all the way. "What is the matter with you?" She was bright red in the face, the color of lipstick worn by woman of fresh old age. The ones crying out, 'I'm not dead yet!' It was evident that the bulk of the damage belonged to the red Escapade with the red-haired girl hanging out the driver's window. The mother yelled and screamed, pounding her hand on the girl's windshield, not understanding why Cara was staring upwards, still smiling, with a thin trickle of blood slipping from her forehead.

The time is November 23rd, 2004, 13:05. The world is a throne room, with Britain and Russia kneeling as the grand throne, and all the other nations rolled into the long red carpet. On the throne sits the President with his advisors draped over his shoulders, the Houses grumbling as the banners at his sides, and the Free World regalia delicately balanced on his grey-haired head. The President crawls on the floor, clicking his tongue and making convincing faces at the hissing cat cornered under his desk. Down the street, window wipers dance on the bar, clicking their heels and sloshing beer in brief escape. Mrs. Ross's fifth grade class loses consciousness and finds their heads slipping from their hands and slamming down upon their desks. Outside the school, Cara Gallagher stares unabatedly at a rainbow while policeman and soccer mom shake her to the moment. She wakens at 13:08.

"What the fuck did you do to my car?!" the woman yelled, pushing Cara and policeman away and pointing furiously at her crushed car.

The policeman looked from her finger to the dented steel in surprise. Cara looked on in anger and shook her head.

"You're kidding! The light was red! You back ended me!" the woman yelled.Cara jumped up on the hood of her car. She knew the blame was hers for sure; she was young, she drove a red sports car, the light was red, and there was a gorgeous rainbow just above her. It called to her. She fixed her eyes on the wreck.

"Ma'am. Ma'am, calm down." The policeman gently wrapped his hand around the woman's arm, holding her back from stomping over to Cara and indignating further. "I need you to swap insurance, address and give me your telephone numbers. License, please, ma'ams. Oh yes. And names.

"The rainbow sang in her ears. She could only hear his voice barely over the colors. She couldn't hear the other woman, even as she yelled her name. Roscalyin.

"Ma'am?" the policeman turned to her.

"Cara Gallagher..."

There was a pause. The policeman sighed. "Alright. I need Miss Gallagher to ride with me. Miss Roscalyin may leave for home...."

She barely understood why he was taking her hand, why he was leading her from her Escapade and the rainbow dancing overhead. They reached the police car. Cara slumped down in the seat, resting her head back against the cushion and tentively touching the blood pooling in the crease of her lips. She barely understood why it was there. The radio flipped on to Life As Lived By The Undead and she found her smile again. Suddenly everything cleared. She could see his profile through the metal cage. He was young, like her. But sturdy, permanent. Had she not found his shoulders familiar she would have faded out again.

He started the engine and turned around. He winked.

Her eyes brightened. "JACK!"

"Believe it, baby. Some number you did on your car back there. Why did you say your real name?"

"You're here to save me!"

"Don't know if I did, babe. She heard your name. You think she'll chase you down?"

Cara threaded her fingers through the metal. He touched the tips with his own. The song fell into an instrumental reprise and she was more solid than ever. "I know you can save me, Jack. That bitch'll whine and gripe, but you can feign ignorance. You weren’t the policeman she met. But you have the case file right here in your hands and it says there was no driver in the car when the officer arrived. A Ms. Roscalyin is quoted here, saying that the driver was a young male, and fled across the highway."

"You rear ended her at an intersection, not a highway."

"They're just as dangerous. The driver of my car was a stunning young bodybuilder with a cape and tights. Defying death and courageous, a hero."

"That wasn't your car."

The police car rolled forward, passing an infuriated soccer mom with hands on her hips and glare full-blown. Cara pressed her nose against the glass."

Where'd you steal it?" he asked.

"7-11. Some people still leave their cars running."

"Very nice."

She settled back against the leather and tapped her fingers to the tune of gimme gimme poison licks and I'll live undead with you. It was a sweet song, really, of the lover of a zombie, who, while unable to contract the virus despite frequent attempts by her lover, decides to live life in a lie, ever pretending to be a zombie to remain by the side of her dearest. Gimme gimme fingerpricks and I'll live undead with you.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Saturdays are for suckers.

I plan big things for this blog, but first I must learn a few hundred lessons. Kaki King is something to shoot for. Granted, I haven't listened to the music the site advertises, but the web design is impressive. A slight knowledge of html isn't going to get me there.

Kyhm Forum, listed on the right, is a branching from various webcomics, particularly the work of Micheal Poe. Sporting a strong base of frequent posters, Kyhm is complete with Errant Story, Exploitation Now, among other topics, as well as an Unrelated Forum and IRC chan, and a number of pedants, attention whores.

Another piece posted earlier today. Expect another before the following week is out.

Cecilia's Story

My mother turned to stare at her full-length mirror’s reflection. She weighed on the heavy side, lingering a bit too forward on the scale society deemed appropriate, but she never complained. She accepted herself and her thundering footfalls and tight squeezes through doorways, just as I accepted those brown irises under all of that pugde. My mother was teeming with life. Not only did she merely don it… she wrapped it around her existence-less neck and strutted it around in public. I looked too stretched next to her. Too awkward, too weary, too fragile.

Every time she gazed at herself in the mirror, she caught me looking over her shoulder, my smile shining on the glass along with hers. “You’re not fat until your stomach sticks out further than your breasts, hun.” I’d stare straight down, pretending to look at my shoes or my bare feet or my socks. Really I was just checking myself out of the corner of my eyes. It was ironic. We walked out of that room, my mom, and her fat kid, one gushing life from every fold of skin, the other a toothpick and a flat chest.

We’d charge out of the bathroom, the bedroom, the dressing room at dissenting paces. Her feet clopped along in unbelievably small high heels, my toes lightly flicking the carpet in my sneakers. I bounced high, she bounced low and wide …knocking clothing displays to the sides with her breadth … and sometimes I went careening along with them. The salesclerks were very nice, if a bit astounded by the ridiculous scenes. They’d apologize, as if it were their mondo-hips swinging loose around the department stores, and right the messes. Mom continued on her way, which was for the best. I think everyone in the stores harbored my fear that if she suddenly paused, whether it be to check out an article of clothing or apologize, her feet would sink right into the floorboards and we’d never get her going again.

It was mandatory that I loved her. And I did without consciously forcing myself.

At nights I’d close myself in my attic room, open the window to the crisp twilight air, and sit on the sill, dangling my feet into the chill. Heat rose. If I was lucky, the summer night would carry breezes. Occasionally I had to hang outside the window by my hands, my body flat against the brick. I would kick my legs to generate a wind … and then I’d sweat and ache and have to drag myself back into the stuffy room once more.

In the winter the cold rose. The window would be bolted shut and I’d sit huddled in a corner, lighting little matches on fire for the instants before they burned my fingers and I cursed and blew them out.

During those bad weather days, every attempt was pointless. Mother offered to move me downstairs to a room with air conditioning, but I politely declined. The struggle was something I did not wish to abandon. It was the same effort I indulged in my homework: hefting it up the attic ladder, across the rafters, and chucking it in its designated corner. I was dedicated to writing. The arithmetic and history would only choke my mind.

“You’re throwing away your future, Alan!”

“I’m working towards my future, mom! And …dammit!”

My arguments were never finished. I kept the perfect, retort-stumping reply in my head, but it was never released. I mouthed it a hundred times, silently scolding the woman who gave birth to a flat-chested girl, whom she generously named ‘Alan’.

Confrontation did not agree with me. Yet I rebelled. The homework remained in the corner, unfinished. Sometimes it turned into a small, attic fire during the winter …I found myself in a lot of trouble for that one.

I wrote epics about childhood romances, talking pets, sockless feet. I hid stories about women and men … and women and women ... and men and men … all of which were too fascinating for my mother to stumble upon. I sang quietly to the insulation. During the rat infestation it sang back.

I captured Charlie, one of the rat residents, before the pest removal service billed my mother. While she was screaming to them over the phone about how they should clear up the problem before she paid them, I fixed a tiny hut for Charlie and fed him bugs that flew, unnoticing, into my window. Birds sometimes hit the glass as well … but they were too big for Charlie to eat. He was disguised up on one of the crooks in the wooden roofing. The pest control man found him, though. He screeched and Charlie squeaked … and they both sounded the same … their similar cries of surprise linked the human and rat species on my evolution chart. Mother’s bill doubled. My evolution chart received an F.

W. E. likes to do it in the morning.

In retrospect, I like it right after lunch. Of course only the stingy refuse to pre-game before dinner. They only let loose after the lights dim and neighbors are too busy doing it themselves to hear the shouts and cheers. I don't do limitation. Sometimes I balance a coffee in my left hand, a pen in my right, my laptop in my lap, and a toothpick between my teeth, for ponderous wear.

Ipponmatsu Petals

"Give me everything you are.”

I look straight to the ground, pretending to study the white Ipponmatsu petals under my sandals. My hands tug at my kimono sleeves in knowing that I must answer him. He will never speak again until I do so. But I am caught off guard. This is no empty conversation.

When my eyes finally rise to meet his glaring, desperate gaze I breathe whisps of words, wondering why he is looking so intently at someone bound to have the most disappointing response.I do have an answer for him, though, and it sends him reeling. He raises his hand and I stand there, dumbly watching the sunlight flickering through his fingers as he winds up into the sky. He wears a ringed halo on each finger and for a moment he is divine.

I am overwhelmed with fire. I could tackle him right there, tackle him and hold him to me in the midst of those white petals. Heaven comes crashing down across my face and I fall backwards, down between the thin, sickly trees of a failed harvest. A puff of white feathers rises into the air around me as I land with more surprise than my eyes can express.

No one cries out to my defense, the cobble-stoned streets are empty and reek of desertion. His glare blames me for this. His eyes break through my rash-red skin, I wonder how far he can see. Just in case, I send a thought to him. You are the only chance I’ll take. He doesn’t seem to notice.He’s standing on the edge of me. And here I am, gasping loudly for breath, too afraid to touch the glowing mark on my cheek. He’s telling me to speak again, to maybe answer the command one more time, with caution. “Give me everything you are.” How can I reply differently?

I reach up and gently touch his outstretched hand, glancing at his lips for a reassuring smile, and his eyebrows for that lopsided quirk he always suffers when about to suggest a romantic. Petals stick to my shoulders and back, and I stand still as he brushes them off, his rough patting an angel’s touch, his growling curses, the whispering of newly wedded lovers at night. I settle myself and turn, expecting his smile. I am met with a harsh glare instead.

“Leave this place.”But I can never leave this town, or my husband, with his heaven-blessed whispers, the brush of his halo fingertips against my back, the awkward curl of his eyebrows. I look at him and shake my head. He rears back his fist and I see, for the moment before I am sent spiraling back to the ground, an intense kindness that lifts me toward the sun.